Life Updates in Mosaic

This semester, I took a course titled “Visual Expressions in Churches of Late Antiquity,” a course on art history focused on the very earliest Christian churches during the first several centuries of Christianity. As part of my final project, I’ve been writing on mosaics. The mosaics I’ve been researching fascinate me because they, like all mosaics, communicate a sensation greater than the sum of their parts. Mosaics are made from tiny tesserae, little stones or tiles of various colors, oriented in such a way that you see a single image, or if the mosaic is placed on a curved surface, as my subjects are, you may even be given the sense that the image is flat, when in fact the tesserae curve with the wall.

I mention mosaics, not only because they are at the forefront of my mind, but because I want to update you on my life in a manner much like a mosaic: all at once, with a sense of the whole. Much has happened that I have struggled to share slowly, piece by piece. So, rather than remark on every tesseract in the mosaic one by one, I want to discuss the image of my life so far. So try to read this all at once and ask questions after. Depending on who you are, you might know some or all of this information already, but it is all important and co-inherent.

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As you may know, I am through my second year of a Master of Divinity program at Princeton Theological Seminary. Many have assumed that I am well on the track towards ordination as a minister, which is fair; I have often expressed the aspiration to be ordained, though the process has always been much more complicated than one might imagine. The complexities of the process, however, has brought some complications. Midway through last semester, I learned that I would not be invited forward to continue the process towards ordination. The good news is that I was cut off early enough that, in theory, I could re-enter the process after some time without too much very strenuous difficulty. The bad news is that I was devastated, particularly because I did not have a clear sense of why I was not continuing—either with respect to the decision of the diocese or to the mind of God—and much of my sense of my life’s direction was turned around. So it is a certain thing that I am not going to be ordained anytime soon. It is entirely possible that I will never decide to return to the process.

I have spent much of the last academic year rethinking my own sense of calling—my role in the world, my role in the Church, and so on—and I will instead be charging head-on into academic work. Those that know me are likely not surprised, as this has also been a part of my sense of calling for many years. I will be applying to PhD programs this fall, as well as other backup programs just in case PhD studies, too, are not in my future. Not worrying about ordination has given me considerable space to worry myself with that, for which I am grateful.

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It has also given me considerable space to worry about and think through other things, including what is perhaps the larger, more surprising update I would like to share, which really gives the impetus for this whole essay.

I am non-binary, or in other words, transgender. I have been on hormone therapy for about 5 ½ months as of writing this. This may be very surprising for many of you, you may be surprised this is the first you are hearing about it, or you may be both. It is neither an easy thing to understand, nor to explain. Further, in today’s political climate, it has become much more difficult to admit to being trans in any way. I wanted, then, to slowly unfold this information over time to perhaps ease the blow of either offending anyone or causing anyone anxiety over how to treat me. I realized that was a very slow way to never say anything about it, so again, I am telling you now by trying to give you the mosaic image, and not each individual piece. So here are some highlighted FAQs.

Non-binary? It’s a gender term. A non-binary gender is classified as neither man nor woman in one way or another. Sometimes people might identify as nothing, or as a third thing, something in-between, or as both man and woman in some sense at the same time. I would probably classify myself with the latter two.

So you want people to use they/them pronouns to refer to you? I actually don’t care about pronouns all that much. Most people who have known me have only ever used he/him pronouns and I’m fine to let them. At the same time, there are groups of friends who refer to me in primarily feminine terms, she/her and all, and I like that too. And, often, I will use they/them pronouns if I’m writing about myself in the third person, and if, say, I’m being introduced to a crowd of folks for some event or another, I usually just prefer they/them just to pick something. I’m more interested in explaining my own behavior than requesting how others behave towards me, and I consider myself, in the words of America’s great poet and queer icon Walt Whitman, to “contain multitudes.” So if it stresses you out or confuses you, don’t worry about it all that much.

Why are you taking hormones? Wouldn’t you do that if you were becoming a woman? You would if you were, but I’m not. I am becoming more womanly, certainly, with the goal of rounding out to a more androgynous presentation. The main reason is that it makes me happier, especially as it isn’t just about physical changes, but has a lot of mental-emotional effects as well. I don’t think anyone would be very comfortable with me describing all the changes here, myself included, but I’m happy about it. Also, my hair is growing back, which it was kind of doing before but now is going much faster, which is probably the strangest part of all this by far.

Are you still a Christian? How would that work? What does the Church think about this? Yes, I am still a Christian, perhaps more of a Christian than I was before. In fact, if it weren’t for Christ and my faith in Him, I probably wouldn’t be trans. I’m a theologian, so allow me to wax poetic on the theology behind it for a bit.

            The principle behind transitioning, from a theological standpoint, is Christian freedom. In the encounter with God, true freedom is God’s gift to us. It is freedom from sin and freedom from death. It would be a mistake, however, to interpret Christian freedom as a license to do whatever you want. It absolutely is not that. Christian freedom is God’s gift of Himself to us, filling our lives with his Life and our spirit with His Holy Spirit. So my point is not that God has given me the freedom to do whatever I want, so I follow my whim to transition. Rather, in transitioning I am trying to follow God’s calling. By the power of faith one goes where God calls them to go, and becomes what He calls them to become. It is by God’s power that anything becomes anything, and God, for whom nothing is impossible, very well might call you towards a holiness that disrupts our precious categories of gender. After all, “there is no male and female, for all are one in Christ Jesus.” I prayed about this, and studied the Scriptures, as well as theology—I didn’t make this decision lightly!—and I believe that I am following God’s calling for my life and becoming who God wills me to be. It’s God in Christ all the way down. There are more “academic” ways of addressing that question, but this is the more down-to-earth one.

            As for the Church, the Church is very cool with it, or at least mine is. Both the Episcopal Church and Princeton Theological Seminary are trans-friendly, and it’s because of both of them that I can make the decision, theological, social, and endocrinological, that I have made. In fact, the Sunday after Easter, when the Bishop of New Jersey came to the parish where I work and worship to celebrate Confirmations, I reaffirmed my Baptismal vows and in doing so also took a Confirmation name, which I hadn’t done when I was actually confirmed. I took the name of St. Catherine of Alexandria, a patron saint of scholars, preachers, and librarians. For the record, I have no interest in changing my given name, but I do stylize my name with Catherine in it. You can even see my Church certificate and everything.

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I imagine that many might wonder why this is the first time they are hearing of this, or wish they were hearing it in my own voice. I promise that the choice to not disclose it was not made out of fear that I would not be accepted. It’s just complicated. Explaining it is also complicated, stress-inducing, and easy to mess up. Writing, I think, is my best shot at explaining it in a way that I feel is comprehensive enough to fit the occasion. With the initial blow out of the way, I am happy to talk about it very frankly, should anyone want to ask more questions. At the same time, however, I am not a totally different person than I was a year ago. I didn’t feel intense pressure to come out because I’ve still been giving and receiving love the very same way, and while some things will likely change in the future, in substance nothing has really changed. It’s even possible that some of you might have suspected something anyways, or that, now that you know, things about me make more sense or feel like they have more context. That is certainly the case for me.

To follow that bombshell, I’ll leave off with some lighter updates. I’ve taken up electronic music production and have been working on a lot of different songs that I think, but won’t promise, that I will release in the next few months. I actually have released one under the name “catboygirl,” an artist name that makes a lot of sense, probably, given the above. You can listen to it here:

…though it’s much more fun than insightful and, having listened to it a thousand times before and after release, and having gotten much better at the technical side of music composition and audio engineering, I’ve come to hate it a little bit. But such is the artist’s life.

            Finally, from May 20th to June 10th, I’ll be on a trip to Frankfurt, Germany, taking a class on Christian education and fulfilling a long-time dream of mine to travel to Europe in general and Germany in particular. After that, I’ll be spending the summer in Princeton right up to the beginning of the school year, but I do hope I can do some traveling back home or to see friends.

I hope it’s pleasant to hear how I’m doing and what I’m up to. I’ve been anxious to share, and am thrilled to finally do so. Blessings.

— Potter Catherine Cain McKinney